Whilst the car was out of the garage recently, I took the chance to remove the passenger door. Following week was spent stripping it down ( most of that time was spent removing the quarter light glass as the Solbit circuit was broken
). It was at this time that I realised just how big the differences were on the beam strength and the inner door skin between the 2 sets I had (prompting my posts on Kaizen differences). The heavier, stronger door beam off the original car were in far better condition, so a no brainer to use these. Seeing as it would be obvious what vintage the door shell came off ( with door open) I then decided that perhaps I had to just accept the extra work and refurbish the original doors.
Result : Plan B is dead --- Long live plan C ( Plan B, but substitute latter red car doors for the original doors) - Confused? I'm not surprised.
After spending all day on Friday and Saturday with Wet 'n' dry and elbow grease on the doors ( inside and out) I needed something different today, so decided on a dry rebuild of the O/S door and hinges to help get skin re-bonding right. I'll do a separate detailed post on what and how I'm doing it, as i needed to go right back to first principles. It could well be useful for anyone rebuilding a barn find with doors already off, so just to summarise here a couple of headlines.
Very quickly I concluded the factory build idea of clamping the Vac accumulator plate with the same bolts and at the same time as the door hinge was too much trouble ( and judging by how dished the washer shims I removed were, it doesn't work anyway). I'm clamping the door hing bolt initially using M10 half nuts, placing 3mm thick washers either side. I can then fit the accumulator any time in the future, using Nylocks.
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Having previously shimmed the pin to the beam. I next fitted the bottom hinge plate to A post, fitted top plate to the hinge pin and inserted through beam, then offered beam and top plate up to car. No way were the top bolts going in. More shims were needed between the beam and the hinge plates ( I'm sure there were no shims in this position when I dismantled, and the workshop manual makes no reference to them). Maybe this is because I'm still mixing a bit of red car and Blue thinks I, so redid with other parts - no change. Forgetting the door beam for now, I fitted the pin in bottom plate, and mounted top plate so I could measure how many washers were needed.
It looks wonky in the picture, but that is the camera angle. Next I fitted washers, then offered back to car to be sure there would be a clean fit of all 4 bolts .
Finally I had a result. Note the top hole now perfectly aligned.
Now to offer the skin over the beam. Another weakness from original build was the 2 x M6 Nylock Nuts and bolts on the door leading edge to the angle plate ( the thick washer on the inside was cut flat almost to the hole. There was barely room for a socket to fit around the nylock nut. I made a tapped plate to share the load over the fibre glass better.
Over the course of the afternoon, that door shell was on and off more times than I could count, but the plate made life a lot easier as at least once the front bolts were started, you don't need to be holding a long reach extension on the Nylok. You now don't need that 3rd hand. One on the spanner and one holding the door shell in the position you want
. A mod well worth the effort. When I do the final build, I'll put an additional nut on the back, just to make sure it all stays tight.
That's as far as I got. Like everyone knows, doors just fight you every inch of the way....
Tony
What goes together.... Must come apart.
, and with the car being one of the earliest, I decided some time ago that visually at least it needed to look like it did the day it left the factory. I was happy to add things from the 76MY car I had, the doors being a good example as the internal shells are a lot neater ( and were far better condition, so a lot less work 
Eagle eyed Dave.